Sumaiya Swati Udita

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I finished the chapter and closed my book.
I pondered a while and came to look
At the hem of a red dress that flowed like a brook.
I ain’t wrong; for a while, it stood there and shook.

I thought, “It so happens when it’s rainy,
The wind whirls like that after days so many,
That blows away all clothes and doesn’t leave behind any–
The hem, blowing like that, now, with such villany?

I got up and followed the hem in the dark
At night. From nowhere came a spark,
Which allowed me to see the smirk
Of a face in a red dress that looked like a bowl of quark.

I jolted and I thought,
“What could have brought,
This little girl who fought
The darkness, all so wrought?”

This girl, brave and little,
With no sign of being brittle,
Held out a hand that resembled mine’s tittle.
“A hand so small!” Something in me did it kittle.

It held my hand tight and took me somewhere,
Which turned out to be a world so familiar,
With so many little faces, here and there,
Bathing under a joy that poured down everywhere.

Now I could see the girl in the sunlight.
A face so little, but shone and smiled so bright,
Just like the sun. I held her hands tight;
Her eyes said, “You guessed it all right!”

I looked around and fixed my gaze tight.
I saw faces that went out of sight,
Out of mind. I recognized them, all right.
My friends, with whom I used to fight,
With hands so small, so light.

Hand in hand, she and I stood there,
We both looked at the beautiful atmosphere.
“Fair is foul, foul is fair,”
I whispered as I remembered my friends, now so dear.

“Return, we must.
But these memories will not rust,
Just because they are a thing of the past,
That they will blow away in a gust.”

Said the little girl, and we returned from our visit to a time all so lost.
We saw everything that now has to be cherished the most.
I thanked the little girl, this trip’s mighty host,
To have made the trip to the past possible at any cost.
She made me think, actually taught me almost,
It’s important, sometimes, to look back at the time’s frost,
And return to that inner child, which with time, does get lost,
And no matter what, to make time for that little ghost.